


hold my hand running

by Hella_Queer



Series: wherever i go, there you are [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Kinda, M/M, Pining, a lot with these two is the word Almost, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 13:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15631857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hella_Queer/pseuds/Hella_Queer
Summary: 5 times James grabbed Keith’s hand





	hold my hand running

**Author's Note:**

> (my current hc is that James and Keith have known each other since they were kids cause sometimes the public school system be like that. also another hc is that james is older like keith, his birthday is November 13th)
> 
> This show is great for not giving a clear timeline. I know a lot of ppl think that Keith (Lance and Hunk) were in the Garrison at age twelve. And while I’ve gone back and forth with that, I’ve already established a canon in these stories where Keith and James enter at 14/15. So. I’m sorry if continuity gets smashed to bits, and I hope it doesn’t distract from the story.

1~

James was taught that manners matter above all else. He may be young, nine in just a few months, but he’s smart, and his father told him that he’ll go far in life as long as he listens to that one rule. Among others. 

It wasn’t a big fire. Not the kind that sparks tragedy in the news, but big enough to require outside help. A firework that was thought to be a dud had set their gazebo ablaze, scattering the neighbors gathered in their backyard for the Fourth of July party his mother got to host this year. James doesn’t really see the problem. Now they can make s’mores! He’s never had one before, but the other kids in class talked about them all the time, so they must be amazing!

And speaking of kids in his class...

James spots Keith, the quiet boy who sits a row behind him and to the left, who likes the nature and science books that James always tries to grab during silent reading time. He’s with the crew of firefighters, handing out blankets and only frowning a little when women ruffle his hair and call him cute. 

James giggles, drawing Keith’s attention. The boy marches over to him, really frowning now. James was always laughing at him, but he couldn’t help it! His reactions were so funny, and the faces he made when he thought no one was looking. 

“Here,” Keith grumbles, thrusting the blanket at James. He takes it, even though he isn’t wet or cold, and throws it around his shoulders like a cape. 

“Thank you.” He says, then holds out his hand. 

Keith stares at it. 

“Uhhhh..”

James huffs. “It’s called a handshake. You shake hands after thanking someone.”

“You do? Why?”

James wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t tell Keith that. Keith thought he knew everything. That’s why he frowned at him so much. So he grabs Keith’s hand in both of his own and shakes it up and down, firmly with a squeeze. 

“Ow!” Keith hisses, and squeezes back harder. He gets his other hand involved and then they’re wrestling, rolling around on the ground, the blanket forgotten. 

When they’re pulled apart by a big man with a loud laugh who carries Keith off, James examines the scratches on the backs of his hands, little crescent shapes made by bitten nails. 

 

2~

Field trips, James thinks, are far less exciting when they’re attached to an assignment. 

Winter break is right around the corner, but instead of decorating their room or donating soup to the homeless shelters, they’re at the aquarium. They’ve been split up into groups of two, and were given clipboards with a checklist and a little map at the door. Their job was to visit each exhibit and write down an nteresting fact. The team who got the most done within the hour were allowed to get one free item from the gift shop. 

James doesn’t like to brag, he lets the teachers do that for him, but he’s very efficient. After studying the map for only five minutes, he calculated the best route to reach as many exhibits as possible. He was confident that he could win. 

If only he weren’t on a team with Keith. 

For someone so short, even at eleven now, Keith could move fast. Not that James had a problem keeping up with him. But it was hard to jot down facts and keep track of the hotheaded wanderer. He thought letting Keith hold the map would give him a sense of purpose, but he only folded it back up, _the wrong way_ , and marched off ahead like he owned the place. 

“We aren’t going to win if you keep leaving me behind!” James hates that his E looks like an O, but he wrote in pen like his father always tells him to do, because he’s good enough not to make mistakes. He supposses it doesn’t look that bad. If he squints. 

Keith doesn’t answer him. In fact, he walks faster, shoes squeaking on the freshly mopped floor. James stumbles to a stop when he sees the bright red letters on the **Do Not Enter** sign. 

“Keith, stop!” He hisses, trying not to draw attention to them. “Can’t you read, nest head? We’re not allowed in.”

Keith looks at the door, the sign, then James. “It was open last week,” he protests. “My dad took me. They’ve got glowing jellyfish.” 

Whoa. 

James’ eyes grow wide in amazement, his mind conjuring up the pictures they saw in class about bioluminescent sea creatures. Neon fish! The best colors of fish! What if they got rid of the exhibit? He’d never get to see them! And there was no way he could convince his father to bring him here. 

James bites his lip, but Keith doesn’t wait for him. James has no choice but to follow after him, and it’s.. 

It’s magic. 

Bright colors surround them, wiggling, floaty creatures spinning and swimming in a big cylindrical tank right in front of his eyes. James rushes forward, standing so close his breath fogs the glass. Looking through to the other side he sees Keith, dark eyes tracking the movements of a fat jellyfish the bobs near the middle. 

“What are you kids doing in here?!”

James yelps, dropping his clipboard. He and Keith make a break for the door marked **Employees Only** , and race up the stairs. James stumbles once they’re out on the third floor and latches onto Keith’s hand. The other boy drags him around the corner and they hide behind a cutout of a giant stingray, panting, adrenaline in their veins. 

James squeezes Keith’s hand when he thinks the coast is clear, and they head back down, trying not to be too loud. 

James only remembers to let go of Keith’s hand when he has to pick up the clipboard. 

 

3~

It isn’t fair. 

Fire alarms were a joke. They only rang for drills. It was wrong to make kids panic when they were just practicing how to leave a building. They were better off learning how to prevent fires, or how to put them out while they were still manageable. Instead, they get the alarm, and the blue lights, and the shuffling of feet and groaning of students who have better things to do than stand outside for ten minutes in the middle of November. 

James is the last one out of the classroom. Or so he thinks. 

It’s by chance that he hears it, the sharp intake of breath that sounds like someone is on the verge of tears. And when he turns around, there’s Keith. Hiding under his desk, hands on his face, pulling at the skin to stop himself from crying. 

It was all over the local news when his father died back in June. They called him a hero, selfless and brave and kind. They called him everything but what he really was: a father leaving his son behind. 

“Keith,” he says, voice too quiet to hear over the droning of the alarm. The other boy is bathed in a sea of blue, skin losing more color each time it glides over his face. 

It isn’t fair. 

James kneels down and touches him, flinching out when Keith tries to scratch him. He winces when he’s caught, but grips onto a tattered sweatshirt sleeve and pulls Keith out from under the desk. 

“We have to go outside with everyone else,” James says, slow, like he’s talking to a child. Keith doesn’t scowl at him like he’s supposed to. He’s got this blank look on his face, like he doesn’t know where he is or who’s talking to him. 

With an ache in his chest, James leads Keith out of the classroom and down the hall, keeping his steps quick. Keith is slow behind him, but whenever it feels like he’s pulling away, James will squeeze his hand and urge him onward. They make it to the front doors and outside, and James feels his heart sink. 

There’s a bright red fire truck parked across the street, and a group of men hosing down the flames that lap hungrily at the already charred structure of what used to be a bookstore. 

Keith makes that sound again, the aborted whimper, but his eyes remain dry. Their teacher spots them then, but James doesn’t hear a word, too busy watching Keith watch the fire. 

Whenever he tries to yank his hand away, James holds tighter. 

It isn’t fair. 

 

4~

Guilt weighs heavily on James’ shoulders as Takashi Shirogane looks down at him in disappointment. His face hurts. His chest hurts. His entire body feels like one giant bruise, inside and out. He can’t bring himself to look to his right where Keith sits, sullen and pissed. He can’t look higher than Shiro’s shoulders, knowing he’ll melt in shame if they make eye contact. 

In the room behind them, Iverson speaks to his father. His throat threatens to close up and suffocate him. He wishes it would. 

He hadn’t meant to say it. Not to Keith. It was a knee jerk reaction, his frustration and anger at the days’ events bubbling up in a way they never have before. It’s what other people said to James. Mommy and Daddy held his hand and wiped his ass and bought his way into everything. He stopped pretending his classmates were his friends a long time ago. He didn’t need people who only saw his money, his family’s money that he didn’t even really have. 

It’s almost like he’d forgotten. Three years have come and gone since then, since Keith changed forever, and James’ mind has been focused on other things besides the boy who sits one row behind him and to the left. He didn’t go out of his way to think about it either, the orphan thing. There was no easy way to think the words without remembering the years when it hadn’t been the case, so he just didn’t. And with all of the special attention Keith has gotten, attention James would jump rope with his own leg to get, maybe it was easier to forget he was alone. 

Keith was only here because of Shiro. 

But Shiro was the only one here for Keith. 

“You two are the only ones from your old school who have made it this far.” Shiro sounds tired, but also concerned, and sad, which feels like a punch to the gut. “I had hoped that would bring you closer together.” 

James doesn’t know how to tell him that the Universe itself hates seeing them together. He doesn’t know how to put into words that the very idea of them being friends was never an option. It’s not because they’re too different, but it’s the ways that they’re the same that throw everything off balance. They both want what the other has, and it will never be in the right ways. 

James wants freedom. He wants to exist in a world where he isn’t constantly watched. Where he doesn’t have to give a shit all the fucking time. And Keith wants a family, a place to belong, a puzzle that doesn’t crumble in his hands when he tries to pick it up. 

But Keith wouldn’t want his family. And despite how much he wants to find a new one, James knows he wouldn’t survive the way Keith did, if their roles had been reversed. 

He can hear his father now, loud and upset because he’s been embarrassed by his youngest son once again. 

_”You’re too old to be getting into trouble! You’re fifteen years old, why can’t you act your age?”_

The problem was that James _was_ acting his age. Fifteen year old boys say things they don’t mean. They try to impress the men they have useless crushes on. They try to outshine the shadow standing beside them. They ruin their lives in less than ten seconds and spend the rest of forever wishing they had been punched a lot harder, and a lot sooner. 

Shiro makes them shake hands, and says something about being a team, about respect and understanding and forgiveness. James can’t hear him, because the way Keith looks at him sends blood rushing through his ears. That gaze is loud, piercing, like glass cutting razor thin layers away from his eyes on the inside. 

His fingers bump clumsily into Keith’s as he makes their hands move in some kind of motion resembling a handshake. And then he turns and nearly runs down the hall, his eyes stinging with tears he refuses to shed. He hasn’t earned the right to cry when he’s the one who hurt Keith. And he knows he has, because he knows what his eyes look like in the wake of horror and pain. He remembers. 

James doesn’t expect forgiveness. He doesn’t want it. Keith has every right to hate him now. 

He’d left his manners at home. 

 

5~

When James was small he used to be afraid of lights. Specifically the light that seeped out from under his father’s office during the night. If his father was awake that late it only meant tense breakfasts and long talks on the drive to school. It meant no late night snacks with his brothers or slipping into bed with his mom after waking from a nightmare. Lights on at night were never a good sign. 

So when he sees a slash of light coming from Iverson’s office, he hesitates to investigate. 

James pats his breast pocket that contains his holographic keycard. A few months ago, Shiro appointed him as a junior nightguard. He was supposed to patrol the dormitory floors for an hour after curfew, to watch for suspicious or dangerous activity. James knew that meant “Make sure Keith doesn’t sneak out so often anymore”. James had laughed, his face growing warm as Shiro squeezed his shoulder. He grimaces at the memory now, because there’s no one here for Keith to sneak out to see anymore. 

It’s been almost three months since Shiro and the Holts... didn’t check in at the usual time. Three months since their signals died. The whole of the Garrison was in shock for several weeks, murmurs and whispers in the halls and over meals. They’ve stopped talking about it now, because these things happen, didn’t they? Many have given their lives in the name of scientific advancement. This was no different. 

Except that it was. 

James creeps slowly towards the door, and counts to three before throwing it open. He figures this can go two ways. If it’s Iverson he can explain himself, saying he was uncertain if he’d be awake at these hours and thought someone had broken into his office. He’d be praised for his quick thinking and dedication to his position, then ushered off to bed. If it isn’t Iverson—

It’s not Iverson. 

The door closes softly behind him, the only noise in the otherwise silent room. He sees now that the light he saw was a desk lamp shaped like Pluto, it’s glow a faint blue beacon in the darkness. It makes James’ stomach churn, the color washing over a stunned face frozen in shock. 

Takashi Shirogane’s dog tags are clutched in Keith’s shaking fist. 

They gleam silver, shiny and new and unused. Shiro hadn't taken one of them when he went up, because he didn’t think he’d need it. And he was right, because no one was up in space looking for his body. But that didn’t mean no one was looking. 

“How did you get in here?” James whispers, creeping forward. His recent growth spurt has left him with aching bones and muscles, yet he was still shorter than Keith. At seventeen it was a pointless wish to grow taller than him. A lot of his wishes were pointless now. 

“If Iverson catches you in here, you’re de—you’re toast.” James hates this. Keith always has something to say to him, something to yell or growl out. This blank look, this raw emptiness as he clings to the metal bearing Shiro’s name, like it’s a lifeline. 

A heavy weight threatens to crush James’ lungs. 

“Keith!”

_“Shh!”_

Keith is rigid now, shoulders and legs tense, almost crouching. James lurches forward and turns off the lamp, plunging them into darkness. He bites his lip, straining his ears for something other than his own heartbeat. He feels it more than he hears it, a thrumming under his feet. Footsteps. Getting closer. Stopping right outside—

—The door opens with an accepting beep from a keycard. Iverson steps inside, a stack of folders in his hand. He calls for lights on, but doesn’t get to finish before something smashes into the far wall behind his desk. He flinches back, then whirls around, hands raised to grab no one. 

James can’t feel any part of himself besides the hand locked tightly around Keith’s wrist, and the soreness in the hand that clutched the Pluto shaped light bulb so hard he felt it crack before he chucked it. The downside to doors that don’t slide open is that there’s only so much space to stand behind them. They had to stand pressed together in the corner sharing hot, anxious breaths, praying that a man as strict as Iverson had a walking pattern when entering his office. James barely had enough time to drag Keith around the door before Iverson turned around. 

And now they run, breaths too loud, footsteps too clumsy, as they sprint and take every sharp turn they can, until they miraculously reach the dorms. James opens his door and Keith falls in behind him, sending them both to the floor. James covers his mouth to mask his panting, his lungs screaming! Keith is heavy on his legs, gasping towards the ceiling, an arm thrown over his eyes. 

They catch their breath, but still Keith doesn’t move. James doesn’t make him. 

“He’s going to notice the tags missing,” he tells him, twisting until he’s on his back. Keith’s half across his calf now. “He’ll know you took them.” 

Because no one else but Keith would know about them, except for maybe Commander Adam. But the rumor mill wasn’t kind to him these days, and if the tags were meant for him he’d be wearing them. They wouldn’t be in a drawer, unused and unloved and.. new. Brand new. Too new. Like an afterthought. 

James looks down at the tags in Keith’s hand and finally sits up. Keith follows, thumbing over the letters of Shiro’s name. For a moment, for a second, things feel okay. It feels like Shiro could walk right through the door and jokingly scold them for being awake, could smile at them for finally getting along. But he doesn’t. He won’t. He can’t. 

“Hide them for me.”

That piercing stare is back, the one that James hates. The one that was made out of a need to survive, to evade. But instead of pushing him back, it pulls him it. It reaches deep down into James’ soul and drags out the part of him that remembers all the little, useless facts that he knows about the old Keith. 

He liked his sandwiches cut into stars, he hated apple juice, and only drank strawberry milk on Thursday’s. He liked astrology even though it was bullshit, and his favorite sea creature was a jellyfish. He’s afraid of wasps, he likes banana flavored taffy because it’s the cheapest, and his favorite fruit is pineapple, because it “eats you back”. 

When he’s trying not to cry he’ll pull at his face or hide behind his hair. He likes to sit by the window so he can watch the clouds change shape. He mumbles when he talks about things that he likes, because he doesn’t think anyone cares about what he has to say. 

James knows all of that about Keith and more, but he also knows himself. Because he already knows what his answer is. 

“Okay.” 

In the morning Iverson orders a dorm check. They search for almost two hours, but they don’t find the tags, not that they tell the cadets what they’re looking for. They don’t find them because they only pat down Keith, who looks perfectly bored and annoyed with the whole process. They don’t check James, who stands perfectly still in line beside him, their secret around his neck, hidden under his jacket and shirts. The metal feels warm against his chest. 

It reminds him of something familiar.


End file.
